Pollyanna In America With Hank Johnson

Unless you’ve been going on a news boycott, you’ve heard that Americans are outraged about the rampant abuses of government bailout money by Wall Street companies. It’s not just AIG. Other bailout companies are giving out extravagant bonuses to executives who have failed at their jobs. Corporations are wasting bailout money in a huge number of ways, with some literally throwing immense parties using government money.

In the context of this uproar, U.S. Representative Hank Johnson made a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday, reassuring Americans that there’s nothing to worry about. Congressman Johnson said,

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is always great to be an American, and it is always a great time in America because we have hope and vision for the future, and I am happy to report to you that Congress and the Obama administration have departed on a new course of action–no more voodoo economics, no more trickle-down economics. These are failed policies, and it is time for something new.

Whenever something new is on the table, there are always those who, instead of appreciating being Americans, they complain and don’t add anything positive to the discussion.

But despite the obstacles that we confront, we will continue down this road. And, indeed, America will continue to experience morning in America.”

Morning in America? I thought that was 1980 – you know, just before Ronald Reagan made the bad American economy even worse.

It’s odd that Hank Johnson uses a pet phrase from the proponents of trickle down economics in a speech claiming that the new economics are not trickle down. I have trouble understanding how the Wall Street bailouts are not supposed to be trickle down economics. After all, we the American people aren’t receiving much of the money directly.

No, it’s banks and other super-wealthy financial institutions that are getting government help. The promise is that the American people will benefit eventually, as the money that goes to Wall Street then enters financial markets, sometimes through foreign banks, and then after the financial executives have taken their bonuses and play money out, some money will go to big corporations in the form of credit, so that the big corporations will then borrow more money, some of which they’ll spend, and some of which will go to yet other financial institutions, and hopefully some of that money might be spent in the creation of jobs, for which workers have been forced to sign agreements to work for lower pay and fewer benefits.